


If I Believe You (Will That Make It Stop?)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, S2E12: Amor Vincit Omnia, We deserved more Riley and Wolfgang interactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 08:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: When Riley stands to get her next blocker, the room shifts around her, changing fast, and she’d be surprised if she hadn’t expected this. One of them was destined to break through to Wolfgang sooner or later, and she’s relieved it’s her this time instead of Kala, who’s finally getting some decent sleep on the couch.





	If I Believe You (Will That Make It Stop?)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "If I Believe You" by The 1975.

It’s not easy for most of the cluster to connect with Wolfgang when he’s like this, and for their safety, they’re all trying not to. It’s certainly not impossible, and Kala has found that out firsthand; she resurfaces in the kitchen, drawn back into her mind after a visit that was clearly intense, and she’s a mess over it all. Rightfully so, Riley thinks, as she does what she can to console her and the others join. They relieve Kala of her stress — or at least try to—  with hugs and tea and distractions, but the truth is, they’re all afraid, no matter how much they pretend they aren’t. 

It takes all of their collective strength to not visit Wolfgang as they formulate a plan, and it’s a difficult feat because the thought of him circling in their mind has an involuntary, immediate reaction, a connection that can’t be controlled. But they take their blockers and work out the kinks in their strategy, and Riley believes in everything they do, because she has to.  What other choice does she have? The alternative ending to their situation feels too insurmountable to even entertain.

Still, every passing minute feels like it takes years to go by, just as it seems like every other second the alarm goes off again, reminding them that it’s time to swallow another bitter, onyx pill. Time is a weird thing as of late. It has been for awhile now.

When Riley stands to get her next blocker, the room shifts around her, changing fast, and she’d be surprised if she hadn’t expected this. One of them was destined to break through to Wolfgang sooner or later, and she’s relieved it’s her this time instead of Kala, who’s finally getting some decent sleep on the couch.

    “You shouldn’t be here,” Wolfgang says as soon as he catches sight of Riley. His eyes are exhausted and the paleness of his face is a stark contrast to the dark walls around him. It jars her.

    “I know,” she says, but she doesn’t move.

_   “So leave,”  _ she hears him think, but his bitterness falls on a mind he can’t trick; she knows he wants her to stay, at least for a moment. She knows he needs her, for some reason more than the others right now. 

    “I don’t want to scare Kala any more,” Wolfgang admits with a defeated grimace. “I think there might be no way out of this one.”

The following words press their way out of Riley’s mouth as soon as the last syllable leaves his. “That’s not true,” she insists, crossing the inches of bright-white linoleum to come to his side. “We’re finishing the plan at this very second, as we speak. We’re not abandoning you. Not here, not anywhere, not ever.”

Wolfgang sighs. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be rescued and it’s certainly not that he doesn’t think he deserves it, as he hasn’t had the time to consider morals when he’s being prodded at most hours of the day, if not assaulted with volts of electricity and drugs that make every part of him feel heavy. Still, everything is a bit too intense right now and Wolfgang wishes, in a way that the others would probably find masochistic, that it would all just end. He’s so  _ tired.  _

Tears well up in Riley’s eyes and she blinks them back, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth to keep her voice from cracking when she speaks again. She knows how he feels all too well, and he knows this too. Her own buried sorrow reverberates across the English Channel, reaching him as quickly as if he was really beside her and could feel it in person. 

    “Remember what you told me?” she asks, voice quiet, intimate. “When Will was still stuck on the drugs, trying to get enough information from Whispers to set us free?”

Wolfgang waits. His head is hazy. He barely remembers. He really just wants her to tell him, to remind him, to motivate him. 

    “You told me,” she continues, “to not give up on him. You told me that he wouldn’t give up on any of us.” A single tear slips down her cheek then, followed by another, and she bites her lip so fiercely he can feel it as she mulls over the situation. She shares the feeling with Wolfgang: the contrast between Will, months ago, limp and debilitated with heroin in his bloodstream, and now Wolfgang, bruised and chained to a metal table like some kind of slave, helpless and tortured.

Riley wraps her fingers tight around Wolfgang’s, brushing away the rest of her tears with her free hand in a determined motion. She doesn’t miss the mirrored sorrow that trips down Wolfgang’s cheek; she feels the strain of the chains around her own wrists, the electricity damaging her own veins, and she knows there have to act soon. Wolfgang shouldn’t have to handle any more of this. 

    “We won’t give up on you,” she says firmly, “so you can’t give up on us.”

He gives her a tired little nod and she takes it as affirmation. It’s enough for her, enough for him, enough for now. As for what comes next, there’s a murmur in the hallway, voices and accents strained against the confines of what isn’t a fully soundproof room— and Riley notes that in the back of her mind, a reminder to tell Nomi that maybe things aren’t as efficient in BPO as they seem— and Wolfgang grips Riley’s hand a little tighter before he finally lets go seconds later.

    “Do you think they know I’m here?” she asks, suddenly worried, but shakes his head. 

    “They’re not as smart as they seem,” he says, “but they’re also a lot smarter than they seem.”

Riley nods, understanding. BPO is tricky, she knows this from experience.

Riley knows she needs to leave, that she’s long awaited to return to Will and Nomi and Amanita and Bug and tell them everything she’s learned— which is not much, honestly, but at least it’s something— but she can’t bring herself to move, not yet. She scans the room instead, taking in the pristine metal box that Wolfgang lays in the middle of, and he leans his neck against the flat, boxy excuse of a headrest as he watches her gaze.

    “Glamorous, right?” he remarks. His lips quirk up, just a little, and relief fills Riley’s chest at the sight of his smile, albeit weak.

She smiles back. “You’ll be free soon,” she assures him, as heartfelt and convincing as she can possibly be, and she hopes more than anything that Wolfgang believes her. 

The BPO guards rush in soon, mere minutes after she leaves, and they move about their routine with a kind of false urgency, one that lets Wolfgang know they’re not anywhere close to being high up on the BPO food chain. Still, it stings when they touch him, it aches when they check his vitals and pump more anesthetics into his veins and it burns when they draw his blood with a careless sharpness that bruises instantly. Yet, even as all of this happens around him, Wolfgang remembers Riley’s words, feels the warmth of her hand around his, encouraging him— encouraging  _ them— _ and he believes her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about Sense8 in the comments or at my Tumblr blog under the same username, sweeterthankarma. I miss this show more than words can describe, and I'm a writer, so.


End file.
